MNC arms yet to take a call on Facebook ads

New Delhi | Mumbai: Led by their global parents that have suspended advertising on Facebook, large consumer facing multinational companies in India have intensified engagement with social media giants — especially Facebook — to push for more accountability and transparency. However, many are continuing to advertise on social media platforms.Media agencies said the decision by some of the world’s largest advertisers, including Unilever and Coca-Cola, to ban advertising on social media due to inability of the platforms to curb “hate speech” may have a far reaching impact in India. So far, however, the boycott by Unilever pertains to the US market.Unilever’s India subsidiary, Hindustan Unilever, hasn’t taken a call on the matter yet. HUL has consistently ranked at top spot among India’s largest advertisers for the previous two years back-to-back. According to the Pitch Madison Advertising report in 2019, HUL’s ad spends touched ₹3,400 crore. 76681675A highly placed source in GroupM, HUL’s media buying partner, confirmed that HUL has not reached out to the agency yet to withdraw advertising from social media.Several executives at the MNCs that ET spoke to said they are monitoring the developments closely. A spokesperson for the country’s largest packaged foods company Nestle India said: “We are not pausing our advertising activity with FB at this stage as this is not a solution to the concerns we all share over offensive digital content. We are globally asking them to ensure that advertisements do not appear within a certain proximity of unacceptable content.”The spokesperson said Nestle will review progress on a regular basis, as part of its ongoing engagement with Facebook. “We have banned 250 white supremacist organisations from Facebook and Instagram. The investments we have made in AI mean that we find nearly 90% of Hate Speech we action before users report it to us, while a recent EU report found Facebook assessed more hate speech reports in 24 hours than Twitter and YouTube.” said a Facebook spokesperson.Media agency experts in India feel that many global brands will be under pressure to follow suit by their employees but the calls will depend on parent companies.Spokespersons of Coca-Cola India, PepsiCo, P&G and Reckitt Benckiser declined comment. Ashish Bhasin, CEO, APAC and chairman India, Dentsu Aegis Network, said, “Brands, agencies and tech giants are all on the same page on this. Having said that, there are other areas of inequality in India to be dealt with, for which we need to work together with platforms here.”

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